Unen Enkh was born and raised in Mongolia. As the artist recollects, the foundation of his thinking through art was established in his early childhood. Both his parents had a critical impact in his development as they nurtured his taste for imaginative ideas and encouraged courageous free thinking, unusual during socialism. Showing a serious interest in art and drawing, in 1974 he went to the only public, state-run Institute of Fine Art. Unen Enkh studied graphic art. As part of an exchange between socialist countries, in 1981 Unen Enkh went to Eastern Europe to attend art colleges, first in Prague and then in Budapest, where he graduated with two degrees, a bachelor’s and master’s in art. His success in graphic art was quite obvious as several works received awards in 1985 and 1987 at the Graphic Biennale in Miskolc, Hungary. Although he continued to work in graphic art, his interest in other media and experimentation began in Budapest in the mid 1980s. Now he is based in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Unen Enkh’s work concept | In terms of his selection of essentially archaic materials (Mongolian felt with different degrees of hardness resulting from the addition of synthetic resin, heavy-duty iron wire, occasionally with horsehair and hemp cords) Unen Enkh is a sculptor in the classic sense. Creating incredible diversity, however, he acts in the realm of avant-garde art.